Mike-Ward.Net

Simply Weather is a Vista/Windows 7 Sidebar Gadget that brings you the weather in a simple, no nonsense format. It neatly fits in the sidebar and displays the current conditions and 3 day forecast in compact, easy to read format. It also has 5 different display formats and, as of version 1.2, supports many different languages/cultures. Here’s the standard display format.

The options dialog allows you to enter your location information in a variety of formats. Don’t know the zip code for Jackson, MI? No worries. Just enter “Jackson,MI”. The dialog gives you additional hints on how to set locations.

Many different languages are supported. I don’t know exactly which languages since it is entirely handled by the Google API. To enable a language, append &hl;=language code to the location. The language codes can be found using the link in the dialog. Here’s an example using French.

and voila!

Looks like nice weather for the next couple of days, at least temperature-wise.

Simply Weather also monitors for weather alerts. When a weather alert is detected, the wind information is replaced by the alert message in red. If there are multiple alerts, the messages are cycled continuously. Click on the alert and a pop-up appears with additional details.

There are multiple display formats. To switch between the different views, hold down the shift key and click on the gadget.

I typically run 3 or 4 gadgets at a time and use the larger format for my home town and the smaller formats for the other locations. There are also 4 different color backgrounds to choose from.

Double clicking on the gadget takes you to the page of your choice. Unlike other gadgets, your not locked in to a particular weather provider. Personally, I like Yahoo’s weather page because it’s the right mix of detail and the format is easy to read. You set the URL of the web page in the options dialog.

So that’s my little weather gadget. I think it’s the best one available today but then I’m a bit biased I suppose.